Om Namah Shivaya

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I'll be grateful if you...

Dec 30, 2010

Since 27th December, 2010 I am on a trip to Sivananda Ashram at Rishikesh, on the foothills of Himalayas for a week of mediation. Rishikesh is Yoga Capital of the world according to some and for me its one of the powerful centers of positivity. I will back to Chennai on 2nd January and thought of uploading my impressions from this trip as and when my connectivity allows. Hope this effort gives a feel of the trip to my friends. So here is the first such upload.

Today, I visited one of the powerful spiritual centers ‘Haridwar’, where last year there was celebrated “Kumbha Mela". This fair is celebrated after every 12 years and is one of the most revered occasions for spiritual upliftment in India. Below are some of my impressions from the place and hope this gives you a feel of the place.

The Goddess Durga on the base of an old worn out tree
and in the back ground, one of the very large sculpture of Lord Shiva
that dominates the bathing Ghats at Haridwar

In the middle of the Holy River, there is a statue of River Goddess Ganges

For the benefit of Pilgrim's a small canal of Holy River is diverted
and made into bathing Ghats

The view and the waiting flowers to be offered to Goddess Ganges
and cans to take the water back home.
Its scientifically proven that this rivers water never gets stale
even after years

Every one on his own way... here one father bathe's his child to free him
of sins

Some are there to capture moments of being at this holy place

Some are there to capture essence of India

And some times to pose for the camera
In this case mine...

Some are just not bothered, as they live in their own world of bliss....

Many of the people's livelihood, this holy place makes. Here is one such
young boy, trying to fish out the coins thrown in the Holy River
as offering through some pieces of magnate tied to a string...

Every one on his / her own journey....

And I have mine....

Wish you all also find your own journey...
Blessings from Lord Shiva
From Haridwar

Dec 26, 2010

To share the season of Holidays and Christmas festival, here is my journey to a great place of spirituality - Kurisumala in Kerala (India), which means mountain of the cross. This way, marks symbolically all the stops Christ made while carrying the Cross. This is a pilgrim center for Christians in Kerala. Many gather there during the Easter week to follow the way of the cross. Sculptures dot the way. At the top of the Kurisumala, there is a shrine with sculptures of Jesus Christ.

Hope you will enjoy this walk with me on this Christmas Day...

The Christ on the cross and angels in agony

The start of the "way of Christ" the trek is up to
1100Mt height Mountain top
There is a monument at 14 symbolic place, where Christ stopped
when carrying the cross

Enlightening sun at the cross

One of the monuments on the "way of Christ"

Its a pleasure to see this young girl, happily walking
the way of Christ

This image is so powerful for me

The pain on the face, is more and heart touching...

The sun in the clouds over the hill....

The total surrender...

In the back ground you can see almost 4 of the monuments
of "way of the Christ"

This is one of the books I have been meaning to read for sometime. Specially after reading the previous book, I was interested in where this “power of Now” takes him to next. I really enjoyed reading this book and I highly recommend any one trying to understand their own “Ego” and the way to live beautiful life, this one book explains so simply and beautifully.

Eckhart Tolle (born Ulrich Tolle, 1948) is a German-born writer, public speaker, and spiritual teacher. He is the author of the bestsellers, The Power of Now and A New Earth. In 2008, an article in the New York Times referred to him as "the most popular spiritual author in the nation". He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

I was suggested to read this book “Autobiography of A Yogi” written by yogi Paramhansa Yogananda, in my early teens and at that time; it all seemed a mystic and entertaining story of a Yogi’s spiritual life. Though I felt proud to read this book (First published in 1946, translated into 14 languages), as it was one of the few books, that brought Yoga to Western world, I was not able to grasp the subtle and powerful thoughts within.

Its one of the great books written by the great yogi, who demonstrated the value of yoga not only in life but in death too. This book gives the glimpse of yogic life in India most beautifully. In my view, it’s the first stepping stone to understanding Indian spirituality.

The interesting images from Mumbai, India’s financial capital, where I used to travel for my project where we were doing a large inteiors of a Multi National Bank and was frequently visiting during this year.…

Click here to see…

WHISPERS: Dance of Emotions, pain and loneliness…

This time, I have posted four sections of whispers as below. They have been submitted to various online blogs as indicated…

This is one of the books I have been meaning to read for sometime. Specially after reading the previous book, I was interested in where this “power of Now” takes him to next. I really enjoyed reading this book and I highly recommend any one trying to understand their own “Ego” and the way to live beautiful life, this one book explains so simply and beautifully. I highly recommend this book to read.

Eckhart Tolle (born Ulrich Tolle, 1948) is a German-born writer, public speaker, and spiritual teacher. He is the author of the bestsellers, The Power of Now and A New Earth. In 2008, an article in the New York Times referred to him as "the most popular spiritual author in the nation". He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

The Power of Now and A New Earth sold an estimated three million and five million copies respectively in North America by 2009. Tolle is not identified with any particular religion, but his work has been influenced by a wide range of spiritual teachings

To know more about his teachings and his works, visit his website here

Following is some of the ideas in the book that has touched me deeply. The below quotes from his book “A New Earth” might some times look disjointed but then to understand their deep meanings, I would highly recommend you to read the book.

Seeing beauty in a flower can awake humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature.

Most crawling reptilians, the most earthbound of all creatures, have remained unchanged for millions of years. Some however grew feathers and wings and turned into birds, theu defying the force of gravity that held them for so long. They did not become better at crawling or waling, but transcended crawling and walking altogether.

Image Curtsey Wikipedia

Ramana Maharishi (Indian sage) bluntly states,” Mind is Maya’

You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within your, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge it something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.

They (religion) became ideologies, belief systems people could identify with and so use them to enhance their false sense of self.

We are coming to the end of not only mythologies but also of ideologies and belief systems. The change goes deeper than the content of your mind, deeper than your thoughts. In fact, at the heart of the new consciousness lies the transcends of thought, the new found ability of rising above thought, of realizing a dimension within yourself that is infinitely more vast than thought.

What a libration to realise that the ‘voice in my head’ is not who I am. Who am I then? The one show sees that. The awareness that is prior to thought, the space in which the thought – or the emotion or sense perception – happens

The unconscious compulsion to enhance one’s identity through association with an object is built into the very structure of the egoic mind.

… some times of the act of letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness

No ego can last for long with the need for more. There fore wanting keeps ego alive much more than having.

No matter what you have or get, you won’t be happy. You will always be looking for something else that promises greater fulfillment that promises to make your incomplete sense self complete and fill that sense of lack you feel within.

You can easily go beyond this body (Beautiful, ugly etc) identification of your ego… not by trying to convince yourself that you are not your body, but by shifting your attention from the external form of your body and from thought about your body – beautiful , ugly, strong, weak, too fat, too thin – to the feeling of aliveness inside it.

Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego. It also strengthens the immune system and the body’s ability to heal itself.

When you are aware that you are thinking, that awareness is not part of thinking. Its different dimension of consciousness

When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up. If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the while and supported by creative intelligence, the unconditioned consciousness. Which in state of inner openness you become one with circumstances and people then become helpful, cooperative

Coincidences happen. If no action is possible, you rest in the peace and inner stillness that come with surrender. You rest in God

The Core Of Ego

Every ego is continuously struggling for survival, trying to protect and enlarge itself.

Some egos that perhaps don’t have much else to identify with easily survive on complaining alone

And the ego’s greatest enemy of all is, of course, the present moment, which is to say, life itself.

Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.

One strong grievance is enough to contaminate a large area of your life and keep you in the grip of ego.

The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievances about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion

You need to make others wrong in order to get a stronger sense of who you are

‘The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon’ A Buddhist saying

In the service of the Truth, religious teachings represents signposts or maps left behing by awakened humans to assist you in spiritual awakening, that is to say, in becoming free of identification with form

(When you are in touch with your innerself)… all your actions and relationships will reflect the oneness with all life that you sense deep within. This is love.

Can you feel that there is something in you that is at war, something that feels threatened and want to survive at all cost, that need the drama in order to assert it identity as the victorious character with that theatrical production? Can you feel there is something in you that would rather be right than at peace?

All that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it, since awareness and ego are incompatible.

Spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive , experience, thin, or feel is ultimately not who I am, that I can not find myself in all those things that continuously pass away.

The bane of becoming famous in this world is that who you are becomes totally obscured by a collective mental image.

A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever

Role Playing: The many Faces of the Ego

The ego thrives on the other’ attention, which is after all a form of psychic energy

The ego doesn’t know that the source of all energy is within you, so it seeks it outside. Its not the formless attention which is presence that the ego seeks, but the attention in some form, such as recognition, praise, admiration or just to be noticed in some way, to have its existence acknowledged.

Whenever you feel superior or inferior to any one, that’s the ego in you

In the early stages of many so-called romantic relationships, role-playing is quite common in order to attract and keep whoever is perceived by the ego as the one who is doing to ‘make me happy, make me feel special, and fulfill all my needs.’

What is commonly called ‘falling in love’ is in most cases an intensification of egoic wanting and needing. You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person. It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever.

… so every egoic interaction between two people is in reality the interaction between four conceptual mind made identities that are ultimately fictions. It’s therefore not surprising so much conflict in relationship. There is no true relationship

In many cases, happiness is a role people play, and behind the smiling façade, there is a great deal of pain

Don’t seek happiness If you seek it, you wont find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness

Unhappiness covers up your natural state of well-being and inner peace, the source of true happiness

Mastery of life is not a question of control, but of finding a balance between human and Being.

To love is to recognize yourself in another

The longing for love that is in every child is the longing to be recognized, not on the level of form, but on the level of Being

Love implies duality: lover and beloved, subject and object. So love is recognition of oneness in the world of duality.

Love makes the world less worldly, less dense, more transparent to the divine dimension, the light of consciousness itself.

You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance or conform to your role identity.

If the egoic earth drama has any purpose at all, it is an indirect one. It creates more and more suffering on the planet, and suffering, although largely go-created, is in the end also ego-destructive. It’s the fire in which ego burns itself.

You are most powerful, most effective, when you are completely yourself. But don’t try to be yourself. That’s another role.

The present moment is the field on which the game of life happens

Life is the dancer and you are the dance

We could even say that the notion ‘my life’ is the original delusion of separateness, the source of ego.

The Pain-Body

Positive emotions generated by the ego already contain within themselves their opposite into which they can quickly turn.

What the ego calls love is possessiveness and addictive clinging that can turn into hate within a second.

We can learn not to keep situation or events alive in our minds, but to return our attention continuously to the pristine, timeless present moment rather than be caught up in mental movie making. Our presence then becomes our identity, rather than our thoughts and emotions.

Nothing ever that happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past can not prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?

Breaking Free

When you don’t identify with it, pain-body can no longer control your thinking and so can not renew itself anymore by feeding on your thoughts.

Emotion in itself is not unhappiness. Only emotion plus an unhappy story is unhappiness

Finding Who You Truly Are

Knowing yourself deeply has nothing to do with whatever ideas are floating around in your mind. Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind

Ultimately all things are small things because all things are transient

How you react to people and situations, especially when challenges arise, is the best indicator of how deeply you know yourself

Nobody can tell you who you are. It would just be another concept, so it would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. Infact, every belief is an obstacle. It does not even require your realization, since you already are who you are.

Going beyond ego is stepping out of content. Knowing yourself is being yourself, and being yourself is ceasing to identify with content.

Through excessive reliance on thinking, reality becomes fragmented. This fragmentation is an illusion, but it seems very real which you are trapped in it. And yet universe is an indivisible whole in which all things are interconnected, in which nothing exists in isolation

The cosmos is not chaotic. The very word cosmos means order. But this is not an order the human mind can ever contemplate, although it can sometimes glimpse it.

When the basis of your actions is inner alignment with the present moment, your actions become empowered by the intelligence of Life itself

The most important, the primordial relationship in your life is your relationship with the Now, or rather with whatever form the Now takes

Ego can never be aligned with the present moment, which is to say to be aligned with life, since its very nature compels it to ignore, resist, or devalue Now. Time is what ego lives on.

You are never fully here, because you are always busy trying to get elsewhere.

Life is always now. Your entire life unfolds in this constant Now

Time is the horizontal definition of life, the surface layer of reality. Then there is the vertical dimension of depth, accessible to your only through the portal of present moment.

As long as it (Ego) runs your life, there are two ways of becoming unhappy. Not getting what you want is one. Getting what you want is the other

There is something within you that has an affinity with space; that is why you can be aware of it.

… What cannot be thought with mind, but that whereby the mind can think: know that alone to be Brahman the Spirit and not what people here adore. – From Upanishads Indian Scripture

God, the scripture is saying, is formless consciousness and the essence of who you are. Everything else is Form, is ‘what people here adore’

A sane, balanced, and fruitful human life is a dance between the two dimensions that make up reality: Form and space

Just as space enables all things to exist and just as without silence there could be no sound, you would not exist without the vital formless dimension that is the essence of who you are.

They (Humanity) are so consumed by time that they have forgotten eternity, which is their origin, their home, their destiny. Eternity is the living reality of who you are.

Here are the two dimensions that make up reality, thingness and no-thingness, form and the denial of form, which is the recognition that form is not who you are

Discovery of Inner Space

The recognition that “this, too, will pass” brings detachment and with detachment another dimension comes into your life – inner space

All such sufferings (self- created sufferings with demands of make me happy, safe, tell me who I am etc placed on the world) is due to an over valuation of form and an unawareness of the dimension of inner space. When that dimension is present in your life, you can enjoy things, experiences, and the pleasures of the senses without loosing yourself in them, with out inner attachment to them, that is to say, without becoming addicted to them.

Conscious breathing stops your mind

When you think, feel, perceive, and experience, consciousness is born into form. It is re-incarnating – into a thought, a feeling, a sense perception, an experience.

When you are still, you are who you are beyond your temporal existence: consciousness – unconditioned, formless, eternal

Your Inner Purpose

Awareness is conscious connection with universal Intelligence.

Another word for presence: Consciousness without thought

‘I want to know the mind of God’ Einstein said,’ the rest are details’

Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego. The paradox is that the foundation for greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment instead of pursuing the idea of greatness. The present moment is always small in the sense that it is always simple, but concealed within it lies the greatest power.

Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called “God”.

Even in belief I God is poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life.

What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.

When the doing becomes infused with the timeless quality of Being, that is success.

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change.

Thinking cuts reality up into lifeless fragments.

The whole is made up of existence and Being, the manifested and the un-manifested, the world and the God. So when you become aligned with the whole, you become a conscious part of the interconnectedness of the whole and its purpose: the emergence consciousness into this world.

As a result, spontaneous helpful occurrence, chance encounters, coincidences, and synchronistic events happen much more frequently.

A New Earth

There is ultimately no such thing as “your” life, since you and life are not two but one.

Why old is considered useless? Because in old age, the emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: Being? What do you do with it?

You can not loose consciousness because it is, in essence, who you are. You can only loose something that you have, but you can ot lose something that you are.

Not what you do, but how you do what you do determines whether you are fulfilling your destiny. And how you do what you do is determined by your state of consciousness

When you add a goal to the enjoyment of what you do, the energy-field or vibrational frequency changes. A certain degree of what we might call structural tension is now added to enjoyment, and so it turns into enthusiasm.

At the height of creative activity fueled by enthusiasm, there will be enormous intensity and energy behind what you do. You will feel like an arrow that is moving towards the target – and enjoying the journey

Sustained enthusiasm bring into existence a wave of creative energy, and all you have to do then is ‘ride the wave’

Enthusiasm “wants’ nothing because it lacks nothing. It is at one with life and no matter hos dynamic the enthusiasm inspired activities are, you don’t lose yourself in them

I came across a very interesting array of table designs at the Dark Roasted Blend website. This intrigued me a lot, hence thought of sharing this with you all. Very interesting and wild table designs..

This poetry is one of the collections of poetry I am writing, called “Kalina” about a small girl and her world, her feelings her thoughts. ‘Butterfly’ was submitted to ‘One Stop Poetry’ for the competition “Through a Child’s Eyes” and was selected as one of the finalist. Click here to read the article…

I have edited this one below after submission; hence here you have the latest version

Butterfly

________

Look, there she is

There on the window pane

A new friend from the dreams last night

She promised to teach me

How to fly, where ever, whenever

In sunshine or rain

How bright and beautiful, she is

Pinker than my ma’s cheek

Her little wings have so many colors

Like the rainbow

I painted last summer, for my Pa’s Birthday

Before he left for the war,

You know, to make money for us to eat

Tell me butterfly,

How does one eat money?

How does one go to the war?

I don’t want Pa to go to the war;

I don’t want any money to eat; At all

You know, whenever I hug him,

I don’t feel hungry,

God Swear, not at all

Oh! Butterfly!!

Why are you flying away

Going so far?

See, out side, the day is still full of light;

Sure you can wait a little more?

Promise, Ma will be back soon,

From her nightshift,

And, sure she will let you in

Don’t you see, I can not;

I am in the bed,

Too sick to let you in

Butterfly, my dear Butterfly,

You really have to teach me how to fly

Before you came in my dreams

I promised Pa - a hug tonight,

I know where he “wars” now;

Ma showed me the other night,

When she cried,

“There, Kalina, there he is, in the sky

That beautiful bright Evening Star”

You know Butterfly;

I love him so much,

Much more than I love Ma,

Really!

You must teach me to fly,

As I have to go today,

Yesterday, Pa told me

Its time now

Here you see

My Ma does not even smile much

Now

___________

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

The above Haiku’s I am submitting to Poetry Potluck about Passion at Jingle

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Writes Poetry, Haiku, Spiritual Fiction, most of the times about Spiritual and blissful living. He enjoys spiritual journeys across India / High on Himalayas or floating below in depths Ganges, on a self-exploration trip, all the while trying to work out that elusive enlightenment, which every one talks about but, most of the times, don't find.

... and he ends up writing about these experiences at his blog "Shadow Dancing With Mind", which is considered to be India's #1 Spiritual Blog (last three years) and has been listed #36 in top 50 spiritual blogs of the Planet this year.

MY BOOK - 1 OF 'THE MONK KEY' 3 PART SERIES

Songs of the Mist

SONGS OF THE MIST - An Introduction

"Many of us here yearn for something more in our life. Shashi has provided a spiritual release in his beautiful book, "Songs of the Mist". It’s unusual and thought provoking book. The book answers questions that we struggle to frame in our daily lives. Shashi’s descriptive beauty of the mystic nature of Himalayas interwoven with sufferings and the heartaches, and the struggle of each protagonist, provide eloquent and thought provoking read. Not a book to be browsed at glance and to reach books full potential demands commitment and investment of time to savor its subtlety and do grows." - Timeri N Murari (Famous Author, Script Writer and Journalist) speaking about “Songs of the Mist” at an evening of Art, Music and Writing organised by Apparao Galleries at The Hotel Leela Palace